As made predominantly of corrugated paperboard, multi-ply paper, or similar material, pallets of the type noted above and methods for their manufacture are exemplified in Schmidtke U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,325, Quasnick U.S. Pat. No. 4,867,074, and Smith U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,991. Typically, such a pallet comprises elongate stringers and decking members, each having a desired configuration when viewed endwise.
As disclosed in each of these patents, each stringer has a generally trapezoidal configuration when viewed endwise, as a result of a sheet of corrugated paperboard, multi-ply paper, or similar material having been folded to form multiple panels, which define two symmetrical halves of such stringer. Moreover, in each stringer, certain panels are secured adhesively to other panels.
Pallets employing such stringers are available commercially from Gate Pallet Systems, Inc. of Crown Point, Ind., under its PAYLOAD trademark. Efforts to improve such pallets by improving the stringers used in such pallets have led to this invention.
Other pallets of related interest are disclosed in Hermitage U.S. Pat. No. 2,728,545, Roberts et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,683,822, Melli U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,377, and Atterby et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,421.